One section of Amway Center has received a facelift

PHILADELPHIA — Some fans who attend the Orlando Magic's regular-season finale tonight at Amway Center will notice that one of the more picturesque spots inside the new arena has a new look.

A hallway outside the main entrance to the Magic locker room has received a facelift.

The reason: the trades of Dec. 18.

Four months after the Magic dealt Vince Carter, Marcin Gortat, Rashard Lewis, Mickael Pietrus, a 2011 first-round pick and cash, workers have removed images of those players that had been embedded in the corridor's walls.

Photos of Ryan Anderson, Gilbert Arenas, Chris Duhon, J.J. Redick, Hedo Turkoglu and Jason Richardson now line the walls, joining images of such players as Dwight Howard and Jameer Nelson.

Why the lag time between the trades and the new decorations? A team spokesman said it takes eight to 12 weeks for the firm that supplies those detailed panels to produce new ones.

Still the same

Howard vows he won't let his technical-foul woes change his approach with the referees.

"Why switch up who I am?" he said on the night of the Magic's 95-85 victory over the Philadelphia 76ers.

"The technical fouls that I've gotten, I don't think they should've been, not all of them, called for technical fouls. Rolling the ball is normally a delay of game."

Howard has accumulated 18 technicals this season and has received two one-game suspensions for all those techs. He got one after he was called for his 16th and another after his 18th.

He got his 18th technical last Wednesday when he rolled the ball out of bounds after he was whistled for taking more than the allotted 10 seconds to shoot a foul shot.

And he says he's not worried that his techs have given him a bad reputation with refs.

"You know what?" he said. "I think I just have to play. Whatever happened, it happened. I just can't allow it to affect my game. Refs are going to call the game however they feel, so I just can't allow that to mess up my head."

Technicals against Howard could pose a problem once the playoffs start. An opponent's free throw after a technical foul could mean the difference between a win and a loss, of course.

But Magic fans don't have to worry about one thing: A player's technical-foul count reverts to zero once the regular season ends.

And a league spokesman said that if a player reaches a technical-foul plateau in the final-regular season game — his 16th, his 18th, his 20th, etc. — he would not serve his automatic one-game suspension at the beginning of the playoffs; instead, the suspension would carry over into the following regular season.

In the playoffs, the league hands out an automatic one-game suspension when a player commits his seventh technical foul of that year's postseason and an additional one-game suspension for every two techs thereafter.

Layups

•Traditionally, the NBA doesn't release the game-by-game schedules for its first-round playoff series until all teams' final regular-season games — even the ones on the West Coast — have been completed. So, the exact schedule for the Magic's first-round series against the Atlanta Hawks almost certainly won't be sent out by the league until a couple of hours after the Magic complete their game against the Pacers.

•The Magic have designated tonight's game Fan Appreciation Night. Team officials said 13 randomly selected season-ticket holders and representatives from 13 community partners each will receive an autographed jersey from a Magic player before tipoff. Also, the first 10,000 fans in attendance will receive a "Dwight 4 MVP" T-shirt.

•A pregame highlight video will show the top 10 Magic plays of the year.

•Also, 9-year-old Gina Marie Incandela will sing the national anthem, and the Orlando Magic Dunking Dancers will perform at halftime.

• Every fan will receive a "Dwight 4 MVP" poster as they exit the arena.